As many students consider their living off campus for next year, for one group of 24 girls, living off campus means something different than taking the T to Allston. Harriet E. Richards Cooperative House (HER House) is a cooperative living household located in the heart of campus along Bay State Road. However, it is considered off-campus housing.
HER House was founded in 1928 as a way to provide off-campus housing to female undergraduates who were dependent on financial-aid specifically at Boston University. However, HER House is different from other low-cost housing options by fostering a cooperative living and creating a close community among the twenty-four women who live there.
“They [the founders] thought that no matter how much money a family had they would always send the son, or the second son, and they would keep sending all the sons to get and education and they weren’t sending the women,” said president, Carly Fleming (CAS ’12). “So since the house is an all-female house, it was considered a respectable place to send women so they could be educated.”
As a cooperative community, residents are required to do chores during the week and on the weekend. The amounts of chores that a resident has to do are determined by a point system. These chores range from tiding the kitchen to cleaning the bathroom. Members are also expected to cook dinners for each other.
“A lot of times people will make what their family would make,” said Fleming. “Jackie’s from Guatemala, so she’ll make a lot of Guatemalean food, and Karen will make Chinese food.”
Residents of the house switch off cooking dinner Sundays through Thursdays. Since many have not cooked dinner for 23 girls before, living in the house helps teach them this new skill among others.
“I never knew how to cook but it’s great because if I was living on my own, I would be eating grilled cheese and Ramen noodles,” said Interview and Public Relations Chair, Shannon Johnson (CAS ‘14). “Now I know how to cook things, people taught me how to cook like pasta and omelets and all this other stuff.”
Women must apply to live in the house. A combination of GPA, demonstration of financial need and a commitment for the HER house ideals are considered when reviewing applications and accepting new residents.
“We’ll interview them face-to-face so we can see if they fit in the house,” said secretary Kristen Keesee (CAS ‘13). “So after that we’ll all meet to see where they would fit in the house. Not necessarily if we’d be good friends with them, but ‘are they someone I can live with?’ And that’s really what we are looking for, not your next best friend but someone you can be compatible with for however long you’re in the house.”
A focus on the community of girls in the house is important. All new members are required to have a roommate or suite mate that they do not know during their first semester in the House.
“It’s definitely a family,” said Fleming. “It makes it feel like you’re not just in college, you’re in a family, you’re living here. It’s nice to come home every night and have dinner on the table and have people you can fall back on.”
The women often hold events and activity to help the residents bond. For example, when new members come into the house at the beginning of the semester the women will hold a retreat to make the new residents feel welcome to the group.
“Generally the e-board will cook breakfast for us [at retreat],” said Keesee. “In the morning we’ll get to know each other, we’ll play games, like ninja…In the afternoon we’ll have some sort of activity, like in the fall we went over to Fenway, they were having College Day.”
In addition, the women hold several mandatory events for the res
idents of the house throughout the year, such as All-House Clean, where the entire house is cleaned, or a Holiday Party in December. There are several non-mandatory events as well.
“The hootenanny was probably my favorite,” said Johnson. “It was when people came here and played guitar and played a lot of music and it was really cool. We invited a lot of people from outside the house, it was a lot of fun.”
There is also a strong alumnae association that connects women who used to live in the house with the current residents. There are often several events during the year with the alumnae as well.
“For me, it [alumnae events] always brings new life into the house,” said Fleming. “It has a long legacy and a long history to it. So it’s not just us. A whole history of women have lived here. It makes the bond really nice. You know, we’re all really close, but you never know what will happen later on. With the alumnae, you can see they establish a really strong bond and a really similar bond to what we have.”
Residents come from many different ethnic back rounds and have many different types of personalities. While there is no ‘type’ of woman that lives in the house, this allows the women to meet new people and develop new relationships.
“We’re very compatible, but we’re not the same. We work. We’re not all homogenous, it’s like a puzzle, we’re all different but we all somehow make a nice picture,” said treasurer Jacqueline Argueta (CAS ‘12).
Since living in HER house provides a different type of college experience, residents find that they learn different things about themselves due to what they are exposed to in the house. “I think the main thing is the people,” said Johnson. “For me, you learn so much about yourself by talking to other people. Also just the cooperative spirit of everything. College is very centered on yourself and what you want to do and your ambition which is great but it’s great to step outside of that and be accountable toward people. I think it’s really good for the future.”
In addition to new skills and a higher degree of responsibility, residents feel they also develop a deeper understanding of women’s issues in society.
“One of the biggest things is that the house makes me think a lot about women, and the challenges that they face today,” said Fleming. “I never really would think about those issues, like I have two brothers and I don’t have a sister. Living with women you really start to see the issues that we face.”
Information about and application forms for HER House can be found on their website at ww.her-house.org.
This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at BU chapter and does not reflect the views of Her Campus.